The composition of cometary ices

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The chemical composition of cometary ices provides clues for the conditions of formation and evolution of the early Solar System. A large number of molecules have been identified in cometary atmospheres, from both ground-based observations and space, including in situ investigations. This includes large organic molecules, which are also observed in star-forming regions. This paper presents a review of molecular abundances measured in cometary atmospheres from remote sensing observations with ground-based and space-based telescopes. The diversity of composition observed in comet populations is presented and discussed. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Cometary science after Rosetta’.